I am speaking for the hard-working Canadians, investors, and industries who are waiting for the Trans Mountain expansion to be built. Canada's Conservatives requested this emergency debate, because on April 8, Kinder Morgan set May 31 as the deadline to stop the challenges, settle the obstacles, and provide certainty once and for all.

However, this was not the first warning that there were too many barriers and delays, that this vital infrastructure so clearly in the national interest is at serious risk. For a year and a half since the approval, the Prime Minister has failed.

Trans Mountain is crucial for Canada, a $7.4 billion initiative that will create 15,000 jobs directly and sustain hundreds of thousands more in the energy sector across Canada, and in all the other sectors that depend on thriving Canadian oil.

The Conference Board of Canada said that the combined government revenue impact for construction and the first 20 years of expanded operations is $46.7 billion, including federal and provincial taxes for public services such as health care and education. B.C. would receive $5.7 billion, Alberta $19.4 billion, and the rest of Canada would share $21.6 billion. Municipal tax payments before adjusting for inflation total $922 million to B.C. and $124 million to Alberta over the first 20 years.

It will provide necessary access to export markets for landlocked environmentally and socially responsible Canadian oil, which is crucial now more than ever before, since the Liberals have killed the only two other new opportunities to tidewater, the Conservative-approved northern gateway pipeline and energy east. That leaves Canada almost entirely dependent on the U.S., which is now Canada's biggest energy competitor. Without Trans Mountain, Canada will remain wholly captive, which is an acute problem because the U.S. is aggressively pursuing its own domestic energy production and supply while exporting crude oil for the first time in 40 years and flooding world markets.

However, it has not been built yet, and construction season is soon. It faces highly organized, ongoing political, legal, and even foreign-funded opponents, who promise they will use every tool in the tool box to stop it. It is death by delay. The Prime Minister's failure has forced innocent Canadians, businesses and families, neighbours and friends, to be caught and at risk, in the crossfire of an escalating trade war and even threats to restrict energy supply between three neighbouring provincial governments.

Kinder Morgan's deadline is an alarming but predictable economic and constitutional emergency. It is a direct result of the Prime Minister's failure to act. Now it is about more than the pipeline itself; it is about investor confidence and certainty in Canada overall. Canada's international and economic reputation is at stake. That is because it is the latest in a pattern of multi-billion dollar energy investments and projects that have been cancelled under this Prime Minister.

The reality is that more Canadian energy investment has been lost under this Prime Minister in two years than under any other prime minister for the same timeframe in 70 years. The total dollar value is like losing 75% of auto manufacturing and almost the entirety of the aerospace sector in Canada. The collateral damage is hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs, families in turmoil and struggle, on this Prime Minister's watch. What is scary is that it is the tip of the iceberg if the Liberals ram through their new energy regulations, their tanker ban, their offshore drilling ban, the carbon tax, and more.

Provincial governments, energy investors, economists, and oil and gas proponents are all rightfully demanding certainty and clarity about Trans Mountain and the future of energy development and transportation in Canada. There is no firm commitment that barriers will cease. The Liberals will make it worse.

Oil and gas provides billions in tax and royalty revenues to all governments, hundreds of millions to charities and in partnership with academic and educational institutions across Canada. It directly and indirectly employs hundreds of thousands of Canadians in every part of the country, and hundreds of thousands more in spinoff jobs. It lifts the standard of living of every Canadian.

The escalating crisis over Trans Mountain is causing investors and proponents to speak out. That is rare, and elected representatives should take note. The CEO of one of the biggest midstream oil and gas operators in Canada, Keyera, said, “Canada is not looked upon as a good place to invest when it comes to oil and gas these days....partly because the U.S. environment is quite positive.”

CEO David Smith outlined critical priorities for Canadian energy, “market access” and “competitiveness, as well as making sure that government is “not layering on additional costs that make it more difficult for us to compete.”

The CEO of Suncor, the leading integrated oil and gas company in Canada, and a pioneer in the oil sands, said:

We’re having to look at Canada quite hard. The cumulative impact of regulation and higher taxation than other jurisdictions is making Canada a more difficult jurisdiction to allocate capital in....

...other jurisdictions are doing much more to attract business, so Canada needs to do much more to up its game.

Absent some changes...you’re going to see us not exercising the very big capital projects that we’ve just finished.

Upstream oil and gas developers are calling on the Prime Minister to ensure Trans Mountain can proceed. The CEO of Cenovus Energy said, “If the rule of law is not upheld and this project is allowed to fail, it will have a chilling effect on investment not just in British Columbia, but across the entire country.”

Banks and investment firms are throwing up red flags. The Royal Bank said, “In real time, we're seeing capital flow out of the country. If we don't keep the capital here, we can't keep the people here.” Scotiabank said, “We're going to lose our competitive advantage on a number of things. Canada has a productivity issue and it has a competitiveness issue. I'm concerned about the resource-based economy, and access to tidewater.” CIBC said, “Slowdown or uncertainty regarding a pipeline is clearly a major factor impacting business investment in the energy space.”

Among the most passionate are business owners in B.C. The CEO of the Business Council of B.C. said, “This is no longer about a pipeline but whether you can rely on government and the rule of law if you choose to invest. This can have lasting consequences.” The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said, “If uncertainty is allowed to continue, it risks doing serious damage to this country’s reputation.”

The B.C. NDP-Green coalition has been challenging federal jurisdiction aggressively, asking for more studies about the product that has been in the pipeline for decades, putting up roadblocks through construction, and intending more if the expansion does get built.

The Prime Minister obviously should have anticipated this attack, since it never supported it and openly campaigned on killing it, but he did not even bring up the pipeline in his first call with the premier. It has taken 10 months and a full-blown economic and constitutional crisis for him to meet about it, with the project on the line. It is a crisis of the Liberals' own making. Now governments are floating the concept of taxpayers financing or backstopping it.

The Prime Minister suggests the only way for Trans Mountain to be built is to nationalize or subsidize it. However, before him, major energy projects and pipelines could be built in Canada with no risk to taxpayers. The challenges will not stop. It is a death knell for private sector interests and investments in the future. It is an indictment of his own record.

Another aspect that makes Trans Mountain so necessary is the economic opportunities and social benefits for indigenous communities now and for future generations. Trans Mountain is partly owned through equity partnerships with 43 communities along the route, worth more than $400 million. Every indigenous community directly impacted by the expansion and within a 10 kilometre buffer zone all along the route support it. As of August 2015, 120 indigenous entities were consulted. About 85% of the owners or occupants on the pipeline route raised no issues or concerns.

Chief Ernie Crey of the Cheam First Nation said, “If this project doesn't go through, it will hurt our people.”

Arthur Bird of the Paul First Nation said, “We have to support the development of the country and its economics, because the economics of the country affects all of us in one way or another.”

In 2016, when the project was waiting for approval, Mike Lebourdais, former chief of the Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band said, “I want the money from our resources...so that we can pay for our health, so that we can pay for our education, so that we can pay for our elders, so that we can pay to protect our environment, so we can build better pipes, we can build better bridges, we can build better railways.”

The Peters First Nations said they are concerned that among all of the well-funded and highly publicized opposition to the project, the voice of indigenous nations that support TMX has been lost.Peters First Nation said it has lived with the original pipeline that was built over 50 years ago seated at the base of their mountain and above their homes with no worries or incidents. They said that the TMX pipeline is the safest way to transport needed natural resources out of the country for the benefit of all Canadians.

Of course, opinions of indigenous people are diverse, and everyone has a right to advocate their views and assemble peacefully. However, it is quite the spectacle to see NDP and Green activists outright oppose economic opportunity and security for 43 Indigenous communities while seven challenge the expansion in court. It is stunning hypocrisy to hear politicians speak of this “most important relationship” and worry publicly about the crippling poverty and particular socio-economic challenges and barriers facing indigenous Canadians, while deliberately using every possible means to block financial opportunities and undermine all their efforts and work to secure agreements to benefit their communities, youth, and future.

It was already an embarrassment that Kinder Morgan had to announce to the world in January that it was still committed to the project. In spite of all the delays, uncertainty, prospect of failure, enemies on all sides, it was still trying to get Trans Mountain built. The Prime Minister should be ashamed of his utter failure to champion it, but that is what energy investment in Canada looks like under the Liberal government and the Prime Minister's failure of leadership.

Energy is Canada's number one private sector in the economy. It is Canada's second biggest exporter. Canada's pipeline monitoring system has the strongest safety standards in the world, and risk mitigation, prevention, protection and response advance continuously. Canada is a global leader in energy innovation. Canadians must have industry to work, innovate, build, invest, and profit. Canadians must also steward and protect the environment, air quality, water, land, and habitat.

Canada is the most responsible developer of oil and gas in the world, and the world will continue to demand and need Canadian oil. The Liberals have to champion Canadian energy, Canadian innovation, and Canadian jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I come from British Columbia and over the last couple of days I have received more calls on one single issue than I have received before. It is a very positive response. The hon. member talked about $46 billion in revenues and the $7.4 billion project creating jobs for middle-class families. I would like to correct the member on one thing. I have heard from my constituents that our Prime Minister has shown extraordinary leadership on this issue and he is the one who has clearly said that we are going to build this pipeline.

The policies of the previous prime minister, Mr. Harper, pit one province against the other. Our Prime Minister is bringing provinces together and Canadians together, and putting the economy in place. I have received many calls from constituents on this issue. They are saying our Prime Minister, the member for Papineau, has shown solid leadership, and I am very proud of that.

Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister has done is repeated the same empty platitudes for a year and a half in the face of well-funded, orchestrated, organized, explicit, obvious, ongoing attacks. The challenges will not stop. In fact, the anti-energy activists who are doing everything they can to kill the Trans Mountain expansion have promised they will just keep going on and on.

We warned the Prime Minister of this when the NDP-Green coalition came to power in B.C. We said to contact the premier immediately. He did not. We said to lay out the plan and face specifically the undue and unnecessary delays that the natural resources minister said they would not accept. We said to define them. They did not. We tried to move for an emergency debate in February. We were not able to have it. We then, instead, moved a motion that the Prime Minister should make explicitly clear to Canadians how the Trans Mountain expansion would be built. The Liberals voted against it. Every single one of them defeated Canadians getting to know what exactly the government is going to do a year and a half after the approval, instead of just talking and talking.

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that in the last Parliament, the Harper government actually commissioned a report by an expert on the gateway pipeline. The expert report said there were serious problems moving forward with it until the outstanding first nations rights and title issues were resolved. We now have the same concerns being raised about Kinder Morgan. Does the member believe that whatever government is in power it should be upholding its obligations under section 35 of the Constitution and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and genuinely consult with first nations, and accommodate and consider indigenous rights and interests in any project?

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member raised the northern gateway pipeline, because it is part of why the Trans Mountain expansion is so crucial right now. The Conservatives approved the northern gateway pipeline, which was the only new opportunity to tidewater to export to the Asia Pacific. After the Supreme Court ruling and the election the Liberals could have extended the number of months and scope for consultation, as they actually did with the Trans Mountain expansion. Instead, for the first time in Canadian history, the Prime Minister overruled an expert independent recommendation by the regulator. He stopped it in its tracks. He killed two billion dollars' worth of equity partnerships for 31 first nations and the hope for their communities' futures, the social benefits and opportunities that the pipeline would have provided to them and also to the energy sector overall by diversifying market access.

What is very concerning is what the chief of the Peters First Nation is saying, that pro-natural resources indigenous communities' voices are being lost. The Trans Mountain expansion is supported by the vast majority of indigenous communities, and we should listen to them. They have been consulted. They deserve to be consulted. The crown has a duty to consult. However, the attacks against indigenous people pursuing their own futures with resource development have to stop.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address what is becoming a crisis of confidence. I spent the last two weeks in my riding and I had the privilege of travelling throughout Alberta visiting communities that I represent. Like many in the House, I heard from my constituents about this crisis.

I heard from a young father named Adam. He told me he had just purchased a home. He works for a pipeline company. He said that he believed there was long-term opportunity in the province when he purchased that house just two months ago. He told me that he has a personal crisis right now, that if the pipeline does not get built, he will not have a job. His kids will not have the opportunities that he had hoped he might be able to afford to provide for them, such as the opportunity to live in a vibrant community, to be involved in sports and all the rest of it, the opportunity for mom and dad to have a job.

There is a crisis of confidence and we are hearing those voices. Many politicians in this room will have heard the voice of Saskatchewan's Premier Scott Moe, the voice of the premier of Alberta, the voice of Jason Kenney, the official opposition leader in Alberta, the voices from western Canada that are desperately calling on the Prime Minister to intervene in what is becoming an unmitigated disaster. It is a crisis.

When I go home, I listen to the voices who are going to live out this crisis, the moms and dads who will not be able to provide the opportunities they had hoped to provide for their children, the young people who are looking for their first jobs in engineering, their first jobs in construction, jobs that would have been provided by either the pipeline construction or the facilities that those pipelines would tie into.

This crisis is not just about this one pipeline. This is such a crisis right now. The premiers of Saskatchewan and Alberta and the people in my constituency are so animated about this because this is the only hope left.

The crisis started when the Prime Minister cancelled a project that had already been duly approved. This all started when the Prime Minister unilaterally decided to overrule the national regulator and said he would cancel the northern gateway project. That happened after the election. He put forward the tanker ban on northern British Columbia. There was no consultation.

Now first nation communities are suing the Prime Minister for not consulting them on limiting their long-term opportunities and prosperity for their communities, their children and their children's children. This is how the Prime Minister's time in office started. Then he stalled all the regulatory processes and then Petronas withdrew its project which was the Pacific NorthWest LNG project that would have seen natural gas going from Dawson Creek all the way through to the coast.

Not only did we see delays and cancellation of approved projects, we also saw the changing of the rules. Midway in the approval process of the energy east project that was being undertaken, in the eleventh hour the Prime Minister announced there was going to be a whole set of new rules. The company that was building pipelines would now be responsible for the upstream and downstream emissions from that project. The company would have to assess and determine what those would be, increasing the cost to that company to the point in this case where it could no longer afford to continue to build that project.

It is unbelievable that the minister would heckle me during my speech when I am talking about the desperate position in which he has put people living in my constituency, people living throughout the province of Alberta, and people living throughout western Canada. It is a wonder that the minister still wonders where this crisis is coming from. He seems oblivious as to what is happening in the part of the country I represent.

I am hopeful that tonight the Minister of Natural Resources will spend some time in the House listening to my colleague from Lakeland, who is probably one of the most informed members of the House of Commons on the topic of energy. He might learn something. He will learn what leadership looks like. He will learn what it means to defend the hard-working people who built our country and continue to build it and who work week after week away from their families to ensure they have enough money to pay the bills. They do not just support their families; they support our communities. In fact, they support our country. We as Albertans are proud that the province has done well, and it is partly because of the energy sector. We are where we are because of the innovation, drive, and hard work of the men and women who work in the industry.

If the minister wants to heckle anyone today, let it be the Prime Minister for not allowing him to do his job to get these projects moving forward. Where I come from, that is who the people who I represent are heckling.

Canada is a producer of oil and gas. We should be proud of the products we pull out of the ground and ship. We are one of the most environmentally and socially responsible countries in the world when it comes to the development of our natural resource sector, and oil and gas. Opponents of pipelines often say we do not need oil and gas anymore and therefore we should no longer build these pipelines. In fact, one person has famously said, in response to a pipeline, that we do not need an alternate route for this pipeline; we need an alternate economy. Interestingly, the principal secretary to the Prime Minister said that.

I think Gerry Butts, the principal secretary, would say that we no longer need oil and gas, that the world no longer needs it. However, the world is buying oil and gas. We have a choice. We can be the country that will sell the resource to the countries that want it, and therefore we need a pipeline to tidewater. If the minister would do something for Canada, it would be to get that pipeline to tidewater.

Why is it important for Canada? I know why it is important for the people who I represent. It means jobs and opportunity, and long-term prosperity for the communities I represent. However, why does Canada need pipelines? Because there is a race to get our commodities to the consumer, and the first country that does so will be the country that succeeds. How as a country will we succeed if in fact we get that product to market? It means jobs and opportunity, and long-term prosperity for the people who I represent. It also means more provincial and federal tax revenue. What does that mean? It means better health care, education, and infrastructure for every Canadian.

This is what the current government is sacrificing. The reason we are at this crisis is not because of one single pipeline. It is because of the attitude on the government benches, including from the Prime Minister, who of course famously promised that he would phase out the oil sands. It seems he is doing that by cancelling all of the infrastructure that would get our products to market.

Therefore, we know the Prime Minister has effectively cancelled the northern gateway. He has effectively cancelled energy east. He has effectively cancelled the Petronas LNG project. Now he is in the process of cancelling this. We are in a crisis. The government has to act.

Mr. Speaker, I share similar passions as my friend when I talk about home, about families that we represent, and the hopes and ambitions we have for ourselves and our children. One of the hopes and ambitions people had when they looked at the Liberal offer in the last election was a very specific one when it came to this project.

The Prime Minister, when asked directly, and it is on tape and everyone can see it, if Kinder Morgan would have to go through a new and enhanced environmental assessment process because the general consideration under his government was that the environmental assessment regime in Canada had been so eroded that so many of the important and necessary tools to judge whether a project was safe or not had been taken out by the Stephen Harper government, the now Prime Minister, then candidate, said yes, that it would go through a new process.

One of the key elements for the people whom I represent was around the notion of cleaning up a potential spill, which we all have to contemplate. The product we are talking about today is diluted bitumen. My question is very simple. Is my friend aware of our capacity today, 2018, to clean up a diluted bitumen spill in a river or in an ocean environment? What percentage would be the expectation of a cleanup under such an event?

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we all know and can be proud of is that we have one of the most environmentally sensitive industries in the world. When it comes to the production and the transport of oil and gas in Canada, there is no one who does it better. Canada can be very proud of that. What we also know is that the Kinder Morgan pipeline has been transporting bitumen safely for the last 50 years, or half a century. It has gone well. There have not been any major spills. What we do know—

Dilbit, pardon me. It is good to have the member for Lakeland right next to me because she can provide me with assistance when I get it wrong.

We will continue to see innovations in the industry. That is what we have seen over the last 50 years and that is what we have seen in remarkable ways over the last 10 years when we see the improvement in the environmental protections in the industry.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's passion for the industry, for Albertans and for the people who need work. There is no doubt our province has had a difficult time since the price reversals in the industry.

I believe our Prime Minister has been fairly clear, and I would like to read this from The Globe and Mail today and see what his response would be. This is from Campbell Clark's column, “That's why, contrary to what so many believe, Mr. Trudeau has long been committed to this pipeline—

That's why, contrary to what so many believe, [the Prime Minister] has long been committed to this pipeline. Many complained he wasn't doing enough to get it built, but TMX has been at the core of his priorities since 2016. That's when he first risked losing B.C. seats and environmentally conscious voters by approving the TMX expansion - and another pipeline, Line 3, to boot....Now he's going to lay out federal money, in partnership with the Alberta government, to backstop a Houston-based pipeline goliath, Kinder Morgan Inc. If that doesn't wave a flag in the face of pipeline opponents, including those who voted Liberal, what will?

I have a couple of things to say, Mr. Speaker. The first demonstration that the Prime Minister knows we are in a crisis position is that he is now putting taxpayer money into the project. He knows it is in a crisis position and therefore he is trying to buy time and push a bunch of taxpayer money. The taxpayer was not being asked to contribute before this crisis developed. We know the Prime Minister knows he has gotten us into a remarkably horrible position, a position of crisis.

The second point is that the hon. member for Calgary Centre made a solemn promise. He said that energy east would be built and he pounded his fists in the House of Commons. I know what a Liberal promise looks like and it looks a lot like that, and it looks a lot like what the minister and the Prime Minister are now saying with regard to this pipeline.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for North Vancouver.

I welcome this opportunity to discuss an issue that is critical to all Canadians in all parts of the country, an issue that speaks to how we leverage the energy resources we have today to deliver the clean energy solutions for tomorrow.

We are talking about the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, an issue we have been fully engaged with really since we were elected, and certainly since I have become Minister of Natural Resources, meeting with indigenous groups in their territories, holding regular discussions with counterparts in British Columbia and Alberta, travelling across the country and beyond in the past 18 months to meet with the proponent and investors, and talking with Canadians across the country hearing their views.

Before outlining the importance of TMX, let me just quickly remind the House about the facts of the project.

Very early in our mandate, we established a set of interim principles to hold major resource projects to a higher standard, increasing consultation, creating certainty for investors, and avoiding the issues created by the Harper Conservatives that led to the dismissal of pipeline approvals by the Federal Court. Let me be clear. We did this to ensure that pipelines were not just approved; we did this to ensure they would be built.

A set of guiding principles included expanding public and indigenous consultations and putting TMX into the broader context of the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. The National Energy Board considered all of these criteria and recommended that we approve the project, subject to 157 binding conditions. These are very stringent conditions that will, among countless other things, strengthen spill response and ensure critical habitat protection and restoration.

Then we went further. To enable even more voices to be heard, I appointed a special ministerial panel to hold additional hearings.

Why did we do all of this? Because the Federal Court of Appeal in the northern gateway case quashed the approvals. It was not that Enbridge, the proponent, had not consulted, not that the National Energy Board had not consulted, but that the Harper government had not sufficiently consulted indigenous people. Therefore, the panel held 44 public meetings, hearing more than 600 presentations, receiving some 20,000 submissions by email, and for the first time, we posted a record of those discussions online for all Canadians to see.

We also did something that no other Canadian government had ever done. We co-developed a historic Indigenous Advisory and Monitoring Committee to help oversee this project through its entire life cycle. As a result, indigenous voices will be heard, their counsel sought, and their knowledge valued in ways they never have before. As Chief Ernie Crey of the Cheam First Nation said, “Indigenous people won’t be on the outside looking in. We’ll be at the table and on site to protect our land and water.”

Even with the 157 conditions imposed by the NEB, we understood that more could be done to protect our coast. Again we acted, making a generational investment in the health of our oceans and the safety of our coasts.

I have been listening to the speeches from the members opposite in the Conservative Party, and I cannot recall references to the coasts and protecting marine safety. I hear only vague conversation about the environment. However, our government knows that without environmental stewardship, without economic growth and jobs, and without proper consultation with indigenous peoples, there will be no pipelines built in our country. As members opposite will know, during their 10 years in office not one kilometre of pipeline was built to tidewater, not one. If in subsequent interventions they want to correct the record, I invite them to do it.

The $1.5 billion in an ocean protection plan is making navigation safer by strengthening the eyes and ears of the Coast Guard to ensure better communication with vessels, adding a new radar site in strategic locations, and putting more enforcement officers on the coast.

The plan strengthens our capacity to respond in the unlikely event of an accident by adding more primary environmental response teams to bolster Coast Guard capacity, by investing in new technologies, and by conducting scientific research to make cleanups more effective. As well, we reopened the Kitsilano Coast Guard station that was shuttered by the Harper Conservatives.

In approving TMX, our government also looked at the economic benefits it would bring to Canadians, and they are significant. This is a $7.4-billion infrastructure project that will create thousands of good-paying middle-class jobs right across the country.

The Prime Minister and I were in Fort McMurray just a number of days ago. We met with workers onsite. We met with CEOs. We met people, Canadians, from coast to coast to coast who were in Alberta using their energy and using their capacity to help what we believe to be true. It is that the future of the energy sector in Canada is vital for our growth as a nation.

We also need to expand our world markets. Ninety-nine percent of all of our exports in oil and gas go to one country, the United States. The Trans Mountain expansion will enable us to open up new markets in the world at a better price, which will benefit not only the people of Alberta but also all those Canadians who understand that attracting public investment from other places is in the interests of our economy and of our future. The benefits to the GDP will be staggering.

Those are the reasons we approved TMX. Those are the facts that led us to decide that this project was good for Canada.

It will not be news to members of this House that pipelines, any pipelines, are controversial. These are not easy issues, and good people, in good faith, can disagree. The truth is that many Canadians understand that there must be a balance. They understand the economic benefits but want assurances that the environment will be protected. They see both sides.

I understand and appreciate the views put forward by the governments of both British Columbia and Alberta. They are elected to represent the interests of their constituents as best they see them. However, there is only one Government of Canada, and the Government of Canada has determined that this project is good for Canada and is in the national interest.

The stakes are high, and we are determined. We will not give up the wealth that TMX will create for Canadian families and communities. We will not leave Canadian resources without access to world markets. We will not continue to accept less than fair value for Canada's energy. We know that most Canadians will agree.

As well, we will not sow uncertainty among global investors contemplating resource projects in British Columbia or elsewhere in Canada. We must be steadfast in our commitment not only to protect the environment but to grow the economy, and we are clearly signalling that Canada is open for business.

Just as importantly, we will not forgo the vital role TMX can play in making Canada a leader in the clean growth century. Instead, we will use this time to Canada's advantage, building the infrastructure to get our resources to global markets and using the revenues they generate to invest in our energy future. The project is too important a part of that plan.

So too is ratifying the Paris Accord, putting a price on carbon, investing in clean technology and infrastructure, accelerating the phase-out of coal, creating a low carbon fuel standard, regulating methane emissions, and, together with our provincial and territorial colleagues, developing a national plan for combatting climate change.

We believe that this project is vital for the future of the Canadian economy to give confidence to investors that Canada is a place that understands the balance between environmental stewardship and economic growth, a country that understands that energy and the capacity to harness energy in all of its diversity that we are blessed as Canadians to have inherited will put us in a place to lead the world.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for his great speech. There is nothing in that speech that I can disagree with. It was basically a history of how we got here.

What we are looking for, though, are the concrete actions that the minister is going to take today to make sure that this project does not end. I know the minister likes to run away from questions like this, but we are six weeks away from the project being at an end. We are looking for some concrete actions. We want to hear a plan on how we are going to get at least one foot of this pipeline built.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member has watched, or read reports with respect to, the Prime Minister's meeting yesterday with the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia. He might have even seen the press conference where the Prime Minister was unswerving in his commitment to have the pipeline built in terms that will reassure those who are concerned about the uncertainty that has been generated into this discussion by others. He also would have learned that the Prime Minister has tasked the Minister of Finance to enter into financial discussions with Kinder Morgan. We understand that time is of the essence, we understand that certainty is required, and we will take full advantage of the time that is available to us to ensure that this project is built.

Mr. Speaker, I am from Port Moody—Coquitlam, which is a riding right on the Fraser River, one of the greatest salmon rivers on the planet.

The planned Kinder Morgan pipeline will go right through my riding and right under this river, so I have a simple question for the minister: How is bailing out a Texas-based multinational oil company in the national interest, but protecting our environment for future generations is not?

Mr. Speaker, I am confident in saying that this government and this party are the only ones in this House who understand exactly that we can develop good jobs in the energy sector while protecting the environment.

We hear from the New Democrats about the importance of the environment, yet we do not hear very often about the importance of creating good jobs. By the way, I am sure my hon. friend knows there are thousands of union members who stand to benefit from building the Trans Mountain expansion. I am sure he realizes that it was the energy of working men and women and their families that built pipelines before, and who maybe even built this very pipeline that has been carrying diluted bitumen for 30 years and has been operational since 1953.

We do understand the balance between environmental stewardship and economic growth—

Mr. Speaker, during my colleague's speech, I had someone sitting beside me who said that he sounded like an Albertan. That could be all right. At least he is from the Prairies. We sort of consider Manitoba part of the Prairies.

When we talk about the pipeline, the governor of Washington State was very rich when he came out supporting the opposition to it at the same time that the United States and Washington State realized that the Alaskan fields are depleted and are now building pipelines and rails from the Bakken fields to Washington State to build more refinery capacity in Washington State.

The minister is talking about plans, but in six weeks, will we see one inch of pipe built?